IREC

Its like a Maker Fair gone wild. A giant wood wind turbine takes up the south wall. A Gesture-Controlled Vehicle zooms around the floor between peoples legs. David Covillo explains how his team’s wireless Smart Sprinkler Head (which team member Andrew Decker 3-D printed) wastes far less water than conventional sprinklers. As opposed to just spraying everywhere in a circle, overlapping other sprinklers, or pointlessly spraying the sides of buildings, its range and path can be fine-tuned via Google Earth. Using a laptop and their user-interface, simply draw over a Google Earth view of your lawn; that data is transmitted to the sprinkler head.

Walking into the atrium was like a Maker Fair gone wild. A giant wood wind turbine takes up the south wall. A Gesture-Controlled Vehicle zooms around the floor between peoples legs. David Covillo explains how their 3-D printed (3D modeling and printing by senior Mechanical Engineer Andrew Decker), wireless, battery powered Smart Sprinkler head wastes less water than conventional sprinklers. Its nozzle can be fine-tuned for range and ultra-precise Google-Earth-mapped spray path as opposed to just spraying everywhere in a circle, overlapping other sprinklers, or pointlessly spraying the sides of buildings. Using a laptop and a user-interface, you simply draw a path over a Google Earth view of your lawn, and that data is transmitted to the sprinkler head via Bluetooth. The other benefit is their sprinkler head is hot-swappable, meaning you can easily adapt an old system without digging the lines up. Just replace traditional head with their model, everything else is controlled remotely, (though a sustainable power system is still in the works). Outside on the lawn an autonomous, auto-charging quadcopter is humming and lifting off the ground, (though tethered today for safety purposes.) Puneet Janda and Rudolph Hulse designed the MC charging station, which allows the drone to sense when it is running low on power and automatically return, dock and recharge, and then take off again. Janda says her biggest challenge was coding, and she taught herself a lot on the internet, and from her classmates, too. Suzanne Rieseberg, senior Electrical Engineer, designed the GPS features. She explained the purpose of their camera equipped quadcopter is to examine replace helicopters and pilots used to inspect rural power lines. She formerly worked as a Navy aviation technician on H60 helicopters before coming to EWU to study engineering. She describes her experience at Eastern as overwhelmingly positive, and praised the professors. Rieseberg has already secured a job at Garmin. The Rocket team conducted a test burn of a small rocket, and wisely advised the spectators to cover their ears (see video). In two weeks they will be returning with the EWU Rocket Team to Utah to compete at IREC for their second time. They placed third last year, just behind MIT and Brazil. They are bringing down their biggest rocket ever, hoping to double their altitude over last year. This year the group has fabricated and test-fired half a dozen hand-mixed propellant motors, and have settled on five daisy-chained proprietary motors to hopefully reach 22,000 feet. — Self Charging Autonomous Quadcopter and the proud engineering team

A dozen other projects too large to fit inside are out on the lawn: an autonomous, auto-charging quadcopter is hovering (though tethered today for safety purposes.)

Quadcopter team-members Puneet Janda and Rudolph Hulse designed the MC charging station, which allows the drone to sense when its running low on power, automatically dock and recharge, then take off again.

Puneet Janda with the MC charge station she engineered.

Suzanne Rieseberg, senior Electrical Engineer, designed the GPS features. She explained the purpose of their HD camera equipped quadcopter is to replace expensive helicopters used to inspect rural power lines. Rieseberg formerly worked as a Navy aviation technician on H60 helicopters before coming to EWU to study engineering. She describes her experience at Eastern as overwhelmingly positive, and praised the professors. She has already secured a job at Garmin, and will start just two weeks after graduation.

Rocket Team's display their smaller rocket housings — Rocket Team’s display their small-scale rocket housings, with the propellant “motor” at far left.

The EWU Rocket Team conducted a test burn of a small rocket, and wisely advised the spectators to cover their ears (see video). In two weeks they will be returning with the EWU Rocket Team to Utah to compete at IREC for their second time. Last year they placed third out of over 30 teams, just behind MIT and Brazil. This year they are and beat the most prestigious engineering school in the US. The team has fabricated and test-fired a number of custom propellant motors, and have settled on five proprietary motors to launch their rocket above 20,000 feet, this would effectively double their altitude from 2015.

Electric Motorcycle Team (with stunt doubles)

Other Senior Capstone team projects included 100% custom-built Li-Ion electric go-kart; an electric motorcycle; Smart Outlets; Automated Hydraulic Pressure Brake; Silica Dust Pressure Sensing System; a rocket launch tower; and a full scale support frame for a tear-drop style camper, among many others. It was an impressive display of the many talents of EWU’s Science and Engineering Majors.

A "Homestead Wind-Turbine" Capstone project — A “Homestead Wind-Turbine” Capstone project

It's Friday morning and the mechanical engineering workshop is a hive of activity. The high, square workbenches are filled with students intently focused on their tasks.

There's good reason for their excitement: they're hand-building two high powered rockets which reach heights of 10,600 feet which will deploy custom-designed glider technology.

Rocketry Club lifts EagleOne launch pad into place (Photo courtesy Spencer Scott)

The Rocketry Club workshop is packed with tools: ovens for baking carbon fiber and fiberglass molds, and the magic KitchenAid where they mix rocket fuel. Next door is a fully stocked machine shop. A band saw winds up and for a second drowns out the other noises.

All this productivity is strangely comforting, kind of like Santa’s workshop, if Santa were delivering payloads to the International Space Station.

In a corner sits Eagle One, the group’s sleek red and white rocket. Their pride for it is obvious as Spencer Scott enthusiastically details the many challenges of hand-building the carbon fiber body, birch fins coated in fiber glass and tipped with carbon. The cone houses the communication electronics and is made from fiberglass. While carbon is much stronger – “as strong as steel” – it blocks radio signals.

All their ingenuity and hard work was put to the test last June when two dozen students from EWU and Riverpoint Academy (whose STEM students designed and built the deployable glider) traveled to Green River, Utah, to launch the rocket in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC). They competed against 50 teams from around the world. The on-the-ground challenges were many, including electronics overheating due to the 110 degree Utah heat.

When other groups had to drop out, they perspired and persevered.

IREC large group shot — Rocketry Club in the autoclave at corporate sponsor AGC AeroComposites in Hayden, ID (Photo courtesy of Spencer Scott)

Though 2015 was their very first time at IREC, they placed third overall, trailing teams from MIT and Brazil, proving both the talent and tenacity of the students EWU is proud to have.

Not to be outdone, for the 2016 IREC they are designing not one, but two rockets; one for the basic category and one for advanced. Never one to take the easy route of buying pre-made motors, the club is once again building everything from scratch, including the motor, which other clubs often buy ready-made, even the big schools like MIT. This level of control allows them to experiment with catalysts like cobalt and aluminum and use software like BurnSim to find the ideal mixture for their custom rocket.

Isaiah Irish cuts Kevlar heat shields that protect parachutes (Photo:Nick Thomas)

Unsurprisingly, this kind of custom manufacturing on top of academic studies is a time consuming labor of love.

Mechanical engineering major Isaiah Irish is laboriously hand cutting squares of tough yellow Kevlar from a sheet that looks like a sail.

“This stuff is hard to cut,” he mutters as he leans into the fabric and squeezes his shears with an iron fist. The Kevlar is wrapped around the parachute and keeps it from melting during launch. He confesses he hadn’t planned on doing club this year, his senior year, and added that he spent many weekends in the workshop over the past four years. But here he is, back at it again.

Rocketry Club welcomes all students, no matter your major.

Learn more about EWU Rocketry Club and watch a sweet video here!

IREC

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